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Saturday, Nov 7, 2009
turingcub
Published Letters: 3
Fairness, as Hamlet_d points out, seems part of the cultural makeup of level-headed Midwesterners. (Would that it were true of my own home state of Kansas.)
And it's a specific type of fairness that needs to be part of whatever calculated moves our PR firms choose to employ in the coming races to get civil rights everywhere else.
Research on "cheater detection modules" of the mind (postulated to exist by evolutionary psychologists) may lend some insight. Such work suggests that when a logic problem is difficult for a person to solve, it's made far easier by re-framing it as a game to catch people taking more than their share.
The marriage rights struggle could stand a little infusion of this knowledge. I say that marriage rights need to be about tax breaks that the federal government is cheating me out of.
Does Jane Hetero Farmer in Topeka give a hoot about whether I can get in line at city hall? Probably not. But does the implicit unfairness of laws that tax some people more than others resonate any more strongly? (Discounts on gym memberships, insurance coverage, property rights?) Yes, money is one thing that should strike a chord with people who ... well, who are rather accustomed to striking us.
I hope HRC - and anyone else who's going to craft a message in time for other elections - are listening to all possibilities. Acceptance is important, obviously; but we've got to win votes however we can.
The Pride party is something to celebrate, sure. But given that Iraqi GLBTs have been systematically hunted down for a year or two now (by a command issued in, IIRC, 2007), a better step for the embassy to take would be a little more weighty than a big disco ball and lypsinkas.
Where's the sanctuary program, the easing of immigration laws, the asylum for people clearly at risk for their lives?
Again, we can see an analogy with the suffering of peoples past - analogous, not equal. The few safehouses that exist aren't concentration camps, nor anything like them. But there's some evil vibe akin to ethnic cleansing in the air. Iraqis deserve protection before they need pride.
I do hate to interrupt your misty-eyed memories of that first time you found out you couldn't moonwalk, that summer after 4th grade in Cleveland, etc, etc, but there's tiny unknown little cover band called Neda and the Protesters, and the projectile celebrity worship is drowning them out.
So I sort of want to call for a moratorium on mention of He Who Was Weirder Than Greek Gods. Except that the bad jokes are already flying: Did you hear Elton John's going to re-tool his tribute song? Yeah, he's calling it "Candle In My Pocket (Reach In There, Billy)".
Yes, yes, we're all going to hell.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The Maine fight was supposed to be the dress rehearsal for repealing California's Prop. 8 -- but gay marriage lost
Once one obtains Seriousness credentials in the Washington media, they are irrevocable no matter one's conduct.
Salon headlines in your mailbox
